Once Runaways
by The Hobbit's Rhapsody
Summary: Twenty-five fics, each one or two sentences long, about the horse's boy and the Tarkheena.   Fluff!


**A/N: Just an experiment I thought I'd try—I've never tried to write such short fics before, but I thought it could be fun, and I've always liked these two.  
><strong>**I'd love to hear what you think!**

* * *

><p>1 • <strong>Words<strong>

Perhaps if Cor had been raised in Anvard instead of a fisherman's hut, he could have come up with something very poetic and complimentary to say about how the golden silk brought out her eyes, but the first time he saw Aravis in an Archenlander ball gown, he was only speechless.

2 • **Pride**

Never mind his fights with Corin—it was getting knocked down by Aravis that really hurt.

3 • **Green**

Whenever Aravis had lunch on the balcony overlooking the eastern hills, she would rub her swollen belly and tell the baby how lucky he would be to be born into this wide and happy land of green hills instead of the shifting sands of Calormen.

4 • **Gratitude**

When they sent out their wedding invitations, Cor slipped a note into Hwin's promising her all the sugar lumps she and her foals could eat in a lifetime as thanks for speaking to her mistress in the woods that long-ago day.

5 • **Silver**

Aravis wore silver on the day she married Cor…just like the sea…he knew she would always carry him safely to shore whenever he found himself lost.

6 • **Convenience**

Some called it a marriage of convenience; they agreed, insofar as their being wildly in love happened to be convenient for the future of Archenland's royal line.

7 • **Stars**

Sometimes, after the palace had all gone to sleep, the Crown Prince and his Princess would sneak onto the palace roof and sleep under the stars, just like old times.

8 • **Only**

Aravis and Cor tended to look back on the times they'd disparaged one another as "only a boy" and "only a girl" with fond embarrassment, for they couldn't have known at the time that "boy" and "girl" were very childish ways of saying "the 'one'."

9 • **Ride**

Cor would never forget the expression on Hwin's horse-face when Bree blithely questioned why she couldn't carry the extremely parturient Aravis on a ride with them.

10 • **Paradox**

When Lasaraleen visited Anvard for their wedding, it was only her internal debate about whether to fawn over Aravis' new magnificence or gossip about the positively scandalous parameters of the marriage that kept her blessedly tongue-tied for the space of a week.

11 • **Benediction**

A Talking Bear once wished to Aravis that she "may live forever." Only the husband of the lady in question seemed to understand why she tried to punch the bear in the face.

12 • **Rain**

Liln the seamstress was forever in despair over the number of expensive outfits her queen and king ruined, but they two never tired of delighting, in whatever way might suit their fancy, in the frequent Archenlandian rainstorms.

13 • **Perspective**

The whole of the third day of their honeymoon was spent in heated debate over the glorious merits (on Aravis' part) and utter detestability (on Cor's part) of fish.

14 • **Schedules**

Cor was never quite sure whether the foremost reason he enjoyed watching his wife sleep late in the mornings was because she was such a terror if woken up too early, or because, coated in golden sunlight and the residue of dreams, she was so beautiful.

15 • **Epiphany**

When Aravis came up from that finessed Calormene curtsy and saw Shasta's face go scarlet under the regalia of "Prince Cor", she knew that he was a far better-hearted person than she, and it would really improve her to stay at his side all her life.

16 • **Gifts**

Even though Cor's poems for her coming-of-age birthday were veritable limericks next to the volumes of flowery dactylic tetrameter Ahoshta had mailed to her four years earlier, Aravis was tickled pink—almost as pink as Cor's face when she read them aloud at the family dinner—that he had written them himself.

17 • **Future**

The first time Cor saw Aravis cry was when he told her he thought she would make a perfect future Queen of Archenland, if she was interested in the possibility.

18 • **Mount**

When he first noticed it in the Tombs of the Ancient Kings outside Tashbaan, it was only jealousy; by the time they were grown up, Cor realized that the way Aravis swung into the saddle of her horse was simply one of the most graceful things he'd ever seen.

19 • **Bequest**

When Ram was crowned king on Cor and Aravis' fiftieth wedding anniversary, it was Cor who cried his eyes out.

20 • **Brother**

"Do you think it will matter that she's from Calormen?"  
>"…If you ever say anything that stupid again, I'll knock you down."<p>

21 • **Language**

When they discovered that yelling made Ram cry, they learned to argue with invented hand signals.  
>(Luckily, the toddler didn't mind the kissing, and other things, that usually accompanied the making-it-up-again part.)<p>

22 • **Angels**

The first time they saw snow in Archenland, the queen's maid showed Aravis how to make snow angels, but Cor thought the laughing, carefree Aravis was much more angelic than any silhouette.

23 • **Change**

It was all the gossip among the visiting delegation of Talking Squirrels when Prince Cor dropped to his knees and buried his face in his wife's stomach in front of the whole court, mumbling something about "delirious with happiness" and "baby?"

24 • **Names**

"Cor" might be a nicer name than "Shasta", but she thought "my love" suited him absolutely.

25 • **Heart**

"Bree, however do you think those two managed to fall in love at all?"  
>"Well, Hwin, it was perfectly obvious from the day we met that those two silly humans were opposites just dying to be friends, and once that happened, with a little help from you and me, and of course the Lion, all it took was a little…<em>brrr-hinny-hrrm<em>, a_ lot_ of extra arguing to get to the heart of the thing."


End file.
